by Em Petrova
“Thank you,” she said as soon as he entered the kitchen.
He dipped his head in a nod.
“It seems like I owe everyone an explanation.”
“It probably feels pretty daunting.” He looked at her slumped shoulders.
“Yeah. But it’s time I take some control. I’ve let things happen around me for too long. If you don’t mind, I’d like some help getting in touch with Bellarose.”
He jerked his head up. “I can make that happen.”
“Thank you. It’s just that she’s been kind to me in the past, and my disappearing is no way to repay that.”
“We can head up there tomorrow if you’d like.”
“She’ll be on set until seven.”
“Good time to break out the drinks, then.”
She smiled, looking a bit more at ease. “You’ve been… well, great, Wheeler.”
He snorted. “All I’ve done is provide some bedding for you to sleep in.”
“Much more than that. Why did you help me?”
He stared at her for a long moment. Was it possible for her to grow prettier by the hour? With the light from the window behind her that way and her hair trailing in thick ribbons over her shoulders…
“I might have run a time or two in my life,” he blurted out.
“Whoa. You? Sit and have some coffee and tell me all about it.”
He chuckled at her tone of voice, which had taken on that of a talk show host.
He slipped into the chair while she brought him a mug of steaming brew. Then she sat across from him and clasped her hands on the table, eyes eager.
“All right, I suppose you’ve told me some about you, so it’s my turn.”
“Yes.”
“It’s nothing nearly so exciting as being a celebrity who’s just fled from her own wedding.”
Aria let out a groan that was too soft and enthralling to do anything but arouse the hell out of him. He was glad to be sitting down and under cover of the table.
“Before I got into wrangling, I rodeo’d a while.”
“What event?”
“Bronc ridin’.”
She nodded, eyes on his face. “I can see that.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t very good at it. I was better at the behind the scenes stuff, tending horses, helping out, giving advice.”
“So you ran from that?”
He gave a short laugh. “Hardly something to run from. I ran from a woman.”
“Ah.”
“It was short-lived, two months tops. I was young and dumb and hadn’t realized yet that there are women out there chasing the next buckle. She left me on the hook, went off with one of my buddies at the time.”
Aria released a low whistle. “Did you love her?”
“Fancied myself in love, I suppose. But isn’t everyone in love when they’re eighteen?”
She nodded. “What happened?”
“I was pissed, in a rage actually, when I found out they’d spent the night together. I channeled the energy into my ride and came out with the top score. I was moving on to the next round.”
“That’s exciting.”
“It was. Except it no longer mattered to me. She had taken something that had once meant a lot and cheapened it. The minute she saw my score, she was all over me, huggin’ on my neck and… Well, you can imagine.”
“Yes.”
“In that moment I wondered what the hell I was even doing with my life. So before I got that buckle, I walked out to my truck and drove away. Never looked back.”
“You ran from the awards ceremony?”
“Yeah, and to this day I don’t really regret it.”
She lifted her own mug to her lips. Over the rim, she said, “I don’t see how this story’s supposed to help me. You ran and don’t have regrets and I ran and I do.”
His lips twisted upward. “Never said I’m good at storytelling. Just told you I ran once myself and that’s the tale. Maybe what I’m saying is that someday you’ll look back at this moment and it won’t feel so terrible. You might even feel relief that you got yourself out of a situation that would have ended badly.”
“Like you did with that woman.”
He nodded. “Nothin’ but heartache in that relationship, and I wasn’t going to stick around for more.”
“I guess our stories are the same, then. I couldn’t see how marrying a man I don’t love was going to make me—or either of us—happy.”
They sipped in companionable silence.
“Wheeler.”
He met her stare.
“If you had to do it again, would you have done it differently?” she asked.
“Only thing I would have done differently, honey, is not broken my foot or injured my horse this week. How ’bout you?”
Chapter Five
“Wait a minute.” Wheeler was on his third cup of coffee and Aria didn’t know how the man wasn’t jittery as a chicken in a wolf’s den. He leaned across the table, dark eyes probing hers. “You’re telling me that the character you play returned to her family’s ranch from the South after falling in love with her brother?”
“Stepbrother,” she corrected, hiding her smile in her mug.
He sat back abruptly, spine hitting his chair and leg kicked out to the side. “That’s fucked up.”
Aria had grown up around rough men with rougher mouths, and she couldn’t help but compare the one in front of her to those guys who’d worked on her family’s ranch. Then compare them to people like Jason Lee. It wasn’t that the man was awful in any way. He just wasn’t her type.
There—she’d said it. Or rather, she’d finally pinpointed her reason for never quite connecting with him.
She hadn’t realized she’d frozen in place until Wheeler sat forward and waved a hand in front of her face. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Just thinking.”
“About how fucked up that entire script is, yeah, I get it.” He stood and carried his mug to the sink. It was amazing how much skill he was getting on those crutches.
And how totally freakin’ hot he was. He leaned over the sink, and she latched her stare onto his backside, all carved planes of muscle that would flex when he got into the saddle.
When she gripped it in the throes of lust.
She quickly stood and carried her own mug to the sink. “I’ve drank more coffee than I have since I was a kid and used to sneak it.”
“Amateur.” His eyes danced.
Her breath caught.
A long moment passed while they stood close to each other but without speaking. There seemed to be no need to when her body had plenty to say. Beneath his T-shirt, her nipples puckered at the thought of brushing them against his chest as she went on tiptoe and kissed those hard lips.
Purely to see if they were as hard as they looked, of course.
His gaze fell over her lips, and the mere look held her in place. Her feet were bolted to the floor.
“You know, Aria, you have to go back to your life.”
She rooted her stare on his mouth as well. “I know.”
“I can manage fine.”
“I know. But I thought I was invited to stay for a week?”
He let out a sound like a groan. “I won’t last a week, honey.”
Her gaze shot to his. A noise escaped her too, and then somehow, she was in his arms, crushed between that steely body and the ugly baby blue countertop. Her first thought was how coarse his five o’clock shadow was on her skin, right before he sucked everything from her mind with his kiss.
When she brought her hands to his face and strained upward, one of his crutches hit the floor. They ignored the sharp bang, and Wheeler took that moment to swipe his tongue over the seam of her lips.
On a fevered gasp, she opened to him. He plunged inside, hot, wet and all-consuming. She fought her way closer, needing to feel him wrapped all around her. He locked an arm around her waist and bent her to him, giving her an up-close-and-personal knowledge of how big, thick an
d hard his cock was.
She wiggled against it, and he growled low in his throat. Sweeping the interior of her mouth with his tongue once, twice. By the fifth stroke, she was ready to strip for him, walk him back to the chair and straddle him right here in the kitchen.
“Fucking hell,” he grated out.
“Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t realize how much I love a man with a dirty mouth.” She nipped at his lower lip.
His grin spread under her teeth. “Fuck yeah.”
With a hand hooked around his nape, she brought him back to her mouth, kissing him as hard as he gave, matching him swipe for swipe and trading bites until she quaked for more.
“Aria.” He drew back to look into her eyes.
“Wheeler.” Her breasts rose and fell with her gasping breaths.
“If I take you once, I won’t stop. You’d best walk away.”
She reached for his shirt buttons. “What if I won’t walk away?”
“Then you’d better walk to my bedroom right now, before I pick you up and carry you there myself, broken foot and all.”
She threw him a wink. “Can’t have you straining that foot, now.”
With that, she turned and walked off, making sure to give him an inviting look. A second later, she heard him cuss and the noise of the crutches on the floor, fast on her trail.
* * * * *
Jesus, Wheeler was harder than pure iron and getting harder by the second. Aria turned to him the minute he walked through the door and kissed him. Her plump lips crushed against his couldn’t even be reality, could it? He must have fallen off his crutches and hit his damn head. No way was this happening.
Except she felt real enough, all soft, silky curves against his, and she tasted like heaven.
He dropped a crutch and walked her backward to his bed. Her knees hit the edge and she dropped to it, working at his buttons till his shirt hung open. He peeled it off, leaving him in only a T-shirt and jeans.
Seated on his mattress that way, gazing up at him with stars in her eyes and her lips red and swollen from his kisses, she was the most gorgeous and sensual creature ever to walk the earth.
Passion struck him as he eased his fingers into her hair above her ear. He threw down his other crutch and lifted her easily, moving her up the bed and cloaking her with his body in one swift move.
He wrenched the hell out of his foot but the only pain he acknowledged was in his groin. Each throb of his heart had his cock pounding, pushing against his jeans so hard that he couldn’t take much more of this torment.
“You’re so goddamn beautiful. Give me your mouth.” His command pulled a rasp from her, and her eyelids hooded a split second before he captured her mouth again. Need struck him hard, and he let his hips drop, sinking against her. While they kissed, he reached under her top, finding her smooth stomach. When he breached the spot where her bra should be, he went still, puffing hard for control.
“No bra.”
“It’s in the wash.” She yanked the shirt over his head. “God, you’re built.”
“Hard work.” In a swift movement, he tore her top off too and cast it aside. Her hair, still damp in spots, spread over his bed in a fan that he wanted to bury his nose in.
Later. Right now her little rosy nipples were begging for his lips. Teeth, tongue.
He dropped his head and took one tight bud between his lips, working it back and forth while she moaned and arched upward for more. Her little noises were driving him wild. He sucked her nipple into his mouth and rolled his tongue around the puckered edges.
She dug her nails lightly into his scalp, guiding him. He released her with a slick pop and moved to the other breast, trailing his rough jaw from one mound to the other.
“Wheeler!” She yanked him down to her nipple, and he realized with a jolt that she didn’t just like nipple play—she seemed to love it. So sensitive to his touch, she allowed him to worship each for long minutes. He sucked and bit into each juicy bud until he was about to blow. Still, he wanted to give her more and more.
“You’d better have condoms,” she rasped.
“A cowboy’s always prepared.”
She flashed a grin and stretched her fingers low over his abs. When she dipped a fingertip under his belt, he felt the vibrations all the way to the toe of his lone boot.
All he could say was thank God he wasn’t in a body cast and could still move his hips.
Spattering kisses over her throat and the shell of her ear, he let her flip open his belt and pop the button of his jeans. The zipper…
“Christ,” he hissed out.
Just short of her touching him, he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. He pinned her in his stare. Then he kissed her.
She squeaked out a gasp, and he didn’t let up, assaulting her with thrusts of his tongue and pinching her nipples. When he could barely hold back another second, he ventured south.
Under the elastic of the sweats she wore. Down, down, until his fingers met silky, bare skin.
Then wet folds.
Soaking wet.
In one rough jerk, he leaned upward and yanked his sweats down her hips. One glance at the shape of her plump pussy lips and the glistening seam had him growling for more.
“I’m going to eat this sweet pussy until you can’t stop begging me for more.” He parted her thighs and dived between them, mouth open wide over her pussy.
She cried out. He moaned into her swollen flesh and probed the seam with the tip of his tongue, traveling down to taste all her arousal and then back up until he bumped her distended clit.
Writhing under him, he trapped her ass in his hands and lifted her to his mouth. Watching her face as he devoured her, inch by inch, sucking and lapping while she locked her gaze onto his.
Hell, he’d never been with a woman like this before. Not only was the heat level off the charts and he harder than he’d ever been, but the goddamn intimacy of that look they shared was driving him mad.
He wanted more. So much more.
He sucked on her nubbin, and she bowed in his hands, digging her heels into the mattress to rub herself on his tongue. He locked her in his gaze and opened his mouth wide to gave her his whole tongue. She fucked up and down it, sliding on a slippery path to heaven or hell. One of them was burning up, and it was going to be her first.
He had to hold out.
Easing his fingers up her thigh, damp with juices, he circled her wet center. She hummed in pleasure, and he took that a step further, adding a fingertip to her backside.
She went still. And then jerked hard against him. “Wheeler. So close. So…”
“Mmm.” He licked her pretty slit up and down while stretching her with his first two fingers and teasing her netherhole with the third. Her inner thighs clenched around his ears, toned from riding and working out as she must to keep in shape for the camera.
Her lips parted on a silent gasp. Beneath the point of his tongue, he felt her clit tense, the bundle of nerves beginning to tremor. Then the first tight squeeze of her inner walls around his fingers had him pushing her faster, harder, demanding what he wanted from her, and he wouldn’t let her back down.
The bed trembled under her ecstasy. She pushed upward onto her elbows, watching him claim her sweetness for his own. To his surprise, she parted her thighs more, and the movement drew him into her. All three of his fingers sank to the knuckles and wild heat enveloped his hand as she came apart in sharp jerks of her hips and feminine cries.
* * * * *
Aria’s first words that came to mind were fucking hell.
Never had she reached heights like that, and definitely not with a man.
Maybe it was the demanding way Wheeler stared straight into her eyes while he tongued and fingered her. Or that surprise he’d given her by claiming her ass as well. She was a virgin in that sense, and the idea of anybody touching her there had given her hesitation, so nobody had ever tried to persuade her further.
But Wheeler hadn’t asked—he’d just tak
en.
Her insides still throbbed with tiny aftershocks that he pulled from her with soft flicks of his tongue across her pussy lips and clit. When he drew his fingers from her body, he delved his tongue into her pussy and lapped up all the juices she’d spilled. Again, something that she’d never experienced.
She fisted the covers and watched him, unable to tear her gaze from him. The expression he wore… like he was loving every minute of pleasuring her… it gave her a warm thrill deep in her belly.
The entire encounter felt surreal. One minute they were talking over coffee, and the next she was pinned under his talented mouth, being eaten until—what had he said? She kept begging for more.
Yeah, that summed it up.
She caught his jaw and dragged him upward, on fire by the hard muscle of his body rubbing against her bare, overly sensitive skin. Hovering over her, he looked down into her eyes.
She ran her thumb over his lips, wet with her juices. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
An animalistic groan left him, and he plastered his mouth over hers, sharing her flavors and that of the man himself. Coffee, toothpaste. Wheeler.
She went for his waistband a second time, and again, he stopped her. Pinning her wrists to the bed, he breathed heavily for a second.
“It’s been a long time for me, honey. I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
“Let me take off your clothes at least.”
“One touch and I’ll blow.”
“How about two?” She squirmed, and he released her, rolling onto the mattress and giving her a beautiful view of the dips and swells of his shoulders, chest and abs.
“Mm.” She pressed a kiss to his pec, moving down to his taut nipple. When she circled it with her tongue, he cupped her head to him and let out a moan.
Encouraged by this, she continued to explore, tasting every square inch of his perfect body. Then she climbed off the bed and gripped his boot. One pull and it was off.
“Wish you could do that with the cast,” he rumbled, eyes burning with intensity.
“I got other tricks.”
“Oh?” He arched a brow.
She went for his jeans, and it didn’t take much to get them off, though she might have torn one of the worn spots wider. Neither cared as she removed his boxers so his hard, long cock sprang free.
